300th Episode
(We see Lewis, looking up towards the camera, dressed casually, and giving a sincere discussion.) Lewis: Before I begin this episode, I felt the need to talk to you guys as myself. This episode is covering a highly controversial work and I have little doubt that there will be lots of arguments and discussions a plenty in the comments section. And while I'm always worried about that, I know in my heart that it's nothing to really be concerned about. If I learned anything after five plus years and 300 episodes of this, it's that my fans and viewers are some of the smartest, kindest, and most civil people out there. With all that out of the way, welcome to Atop the Fourth Wall, where bad comics burn. (pulls a pocketwatch out of his shirt pocket) hmm, it's Miller Time. Let's dig into Frank Miller's Holy Terror. (Full-length intro featuring a longer version of Atop the Fourth Wall theme song and a showcase of all 300 of the show's title cards, including this episode's.) Linkara: You know, in three-hundred episodes, you may have picked up that I'm not particularly fond of Frank Miller. (Cut to a showcase of clips from previous episodes) Linkara: The ever-growing insanity of comic book writer Frank Miller. (edit) Miller before he went nuts. (edit) Mad writings of comic book writer and artist Frank Miller. (edit) The ever-growing insanity of comic book writer and artist Frank Miller. (edit) The growing insanity and awful works of comic book writer Frank Miller. (edit) And let's not forget how he whizzed on Will Eisner's grave. (edit) No, I have nothing nice to say about Frank Miller these days, he's pretty loathsome. (edit) Frank Miller can't write women unless they're in some way sexualized. (edit) Frank "I Can't Direct a Movie to Save my Life" Miller. (edit) Why I hate this racist, misogynistic, sack of crap to begin with. (edit) What are you trying to say, Frank?! What is the point of the miniseries?! (edit) Notice, also, Miller sexualizing a friggin' city. (edit) The segment where Frank Miller is king, as well as the jester. (edit) You'd think that this was just standard Miller idiocy at played at drawing women with questionable anatomy. (edit) The story of one man's quest to ruin his own reputation as a great writer. (edit) Knowing Frank, he'd probably put instructions in the script telling the artist to make sure that we focused on her ass shaking from side to side as she ran. (edit) Frank would have probably screwed that up, too. (edit) [[Bad Movie Beatdown: The Spirit|He passed creepy a long time ago.]] Linkara: I know, I've been very subtle it, but it's there. Linkara (v/o): Today, we're covering a book called Holy Terror, quite possibly the worst Frank Miller comic ever published. The only way he could make a worse book is if it was literally nothing but drawings of people defecating for a hundred pages. Linkara: Well, I take that back, one could probably find some kind of bizarre artistic merit from that and it would be considered less racist ... well, unless all the people defecating were Arabs... I'm just giving Frank ideas at this point, aren't I? Linkara (v/o): Holy Terror was originally going to be a Batman book, called, of course, "Holy Terror, Batman," to echo the catchphrase of Burt Ward from the 60's Batman series. Well forgive for the moment that there was already an elseworld story from DC called Batman: Holy Terror, which, of course, wouldn't cause confusion at all. The idea behind the book was to take the silliness of propaganda comics of the 1940's, where Captain America or Daredevil punched Hitler, and transplant it to the modern day with Al Qaeda. To a degree, I understood and actually kind of enjoyed that kind of thing because when someone was an unrepentant mass murderer, someone who is truly evil and doesn't believe themselves to be the case, there is nothing more cathartic than seeing them get some kind of comeuppance. Linkara: And to be perfectly honest, when they first announced the project, I was actually kind of into it. A silly little send-up of those old propaganda comics transplanted in modern times, just with the Taliban and Al Qaeda instead of Nazis for the like..... But then me and everybody else kind of took a step back and rethought that a bit. Linkara (v/o): See, that kind of propaganda in those comics varied. Yes, there was racism - there's no denying that depictions of Japanese individuals, but even in those comics offered depictions of people who were not evil, but just as much victims of hostile governments. Hell, in Daredevil Battles Hitler, the end of the first story shows a German factory worker cursing that his people don't seem brave enough to oppose the Nazis. Implying that they're cowards? Yes, but at the same time, it's shown as being out of fear and reprisal, not because they're evil. Hell, that same comic book features the most racist caricature, The Claw, decimating a village of innocence at an Asian country just to prove his own points and show what a villain he was. Was it racist? Yes, but it still showed that there were innocence in all of this. In Holy Terror, if you're Muslim or Arabic, you are a terrorist. Linkara: And I'm not asking for a positive depiction of Muslims in the story as a counter balance, as if this was an afterschool special. I'm saying that if this was supposed to be an old-school propaganda comic, it should have been a lot sillier than this. Linkara (v/o): See, you've got a writer like, um, Grant Morrison, who's obsessed with Gold and Silver Age minutia in comics and treats everything in superhero comic history as if its cannon no matter how much it contradicts itself or doesn't make sense with modern depictions. And it's very similar to how Frank Miller should be writing this book, trying to create an insane PARODY of propaganda. And yet, ironically, even Grant Morrison was criticizing this idea, calling it "decadent indulgence when real terrorists are killing real people in the real world." Then again, he also challenged the then-forty-nine-year-old Frank Miller to join the army, if he cared that much about it, so whatcha going to do? But anyway, yeah, this should be a silly propaganda comic that's just as ridiculous as the ones from 1941. Linkara: But, Frank, here's the thing that you're struggling with, and I know it's a difficult concept to wrap your brain around so try to bare with me here, it's not 1941 anymore. Linkara (v/o): In 1941, it was okay to have phrases like, "Slap a Jap." In 1941, black people weren't allowed to go to school with white people. In 1941, straight-up propaganda against the enemy was seen as okay no matter the negative consequences. Manzanar, anyone? My point is that things that were okay to do in 1941 are not okay to do now because we realized that those things were really not good things. Linkara: The reason why we like ridiculous racist propaganda comics these days, is because we like them IRONICALLY! You can't play it straight like you do in this. Linkara (v/o): This book takes itself completely and utterly seriously without a hint of irony. We should have Al Qaeda rampaging through America in giant robots. We should have the head of Osama Bin Laden in a jar using psychic mind powers against the American military. We should have all the terrorists be defeated by offering them Hostess Fruit Pies. Linkara: But, then again, we really shouldn't have been surprised that it ended up like it did. Frank Miller was not the person you'd want to have working on a comic like this. He lived in New York when 9/11 happened. And in the wake of it.... Well, here are some choice quotes from Frank Miller: (Cut to a blank black screen. Linkara reads the quotes (The captions in white) said by Miller. When he finishes reading the quote, additional red captions appear below the quote.) Linkara (v/o): "I can tell you squat about Islamism. But I know a lot about Al-Qaeda and they need to burn in hell." (caption appears: "This comic depicts all Muslims as being part of Al-Qaeda and demonstrates a basic knowledge of aspects of Islamism.") Linkara (v/o): "Propaganda has, over time, become a pejorative term. News objectivity is a twentieth century myth. We only complain about propaganda when we don't agree with it." (Caption appears: "While news bias DOES exist, it reduces ALL news, whether verifiably true or not, to a matter of opinion.") Linkara (v/o): "For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we're up against, and the sixth century barbarism that they actually represent. I'm speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture." (caption appears: "Quick list of ideas and concepts developed by people from Arab civilizations: Algebra, guitars, coffee, optics, the concept of the Earth's rotation on its own axis, modern chess, dissolvable sutures in surgery, cataract surgery, the parachute, shampoo, the windmill, paychecks, the national and geographical charts.") Linkara (v/o): Some will say that last quote is referring to terrorists and not Arab civilizations, but terrorists are NOT civilizations. Terrorists are not a culture. And, as this comic will show, Frank Miller does not make a distinction between the two. Linkara: Frank Miller is racist. There's no way I'm dancing around it. But hey, so were lots of other famous writers in history and some of them are still heralded in classes for their skills. A pity then, that Frank Miller has become such a BAD writer. Linkara (v/o): As I said, this was supposed to be a Batman comic. Frank has said that about half-way through writing it, he realized that it was "not a Batman story" and that the "hero" is "much closer to Dirty Harry than Batman." Linkara: And yet, that didn't stop you from writing Crazy Steve over in ASBAR, did it, Franky? Linkara (v/o): While he says that, I have a different theory about it. What changed was that DC editor Bob Schreck was laid off from DC and became the editor-in-chief of Legendary Comics. Now, Schreck was apparently the one championing the book and, when he was gone from DC, Frank took Holy Terror with him to work for Legendary. Admittedly, it's possible that it was just in combination with the before mention quote about it not being a Batman story. Personally, I feel it more likely that DC told him that they weren't going to print it after Schreck left, since it was garbage that portrayed their biggest cash-cow as a racist lunatic. And despite Frank's protestations about it not being a Batman story, all the superficial elements of Batman exist in this comic, just without the meat, bones and names. In fact, you can actually think of this as just another issue of ASBAR. This is clearly meant to be Batman, well Frank's version of Batman, anyway. And I don't mean the Batman he once said is, "as good and pure a superhero as you can find." No, no, no. This is the Batman who calls twelve-year-olds "retarded" because they don't like the name "Batmobile." The Batman who makes that same twelve-year-old eat rats after his parents were murdered before his eyes. The Batman who loves violence and inflecting pain more than does actually fighting crime. Linkara: And with all of that out of the way, let's finally talk about the book itself. (For the first time in this review, Linkara pulls out Holy Terror) For starters, WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THE IDIOTICALLY BIZARRE DIMENSIONS OF THIS COMIC? (Linkara slams the comic on the floor, while throwing off his hands in frustration and confusion. He then measures the length and width of the cover with a tape measure. The measurements read 9"x12". He slams another comic, called "Dumbing of Age: This Campus is a Friggin' Escher Print" and measures that one, too. The measurements read 7"x9". He puts away the tape measure and the webcomic away and gives the finger to Holy Terror.) Linkara (v/o): Look at this thing! Who prints comic books like this? And yeah, I've seen comics that are not the standard sizing, but those ones are still comparable to normal and have a good reason for their proportions. Web comics, in particular, tend to print books with different dimensions, but that's because they were originally made for a webpage. THIS book was straight to comic book shops in its current form. It was designed to be like this. (Linkara places Holy Terror in the shelf, but unable to shove it any further than about six inches. He places the book in another shelf, which is literally behind the green futon. He goes to the first shelf again, except this time he tries to turn the book sideways. But the book is too big to fit. The book then falls over and Linkara throws up his arms.) Linkara (v/o): I can't even fit this over-sized piece of crap in my regular shelf without it sticking out over the edge. It only fits back there, alongside other garbage I reviewed because these shelves aren't really bookshelves, just deeper shelves in general. Maybe the idea is that I'm supposed to turn it vertically so that no one can see I own a copy. Oh, wait! IT DOESN'T FIT THAT WAY, EITHER!! (Cut back to Linkara on the futon) Linkara: Yeah, we haven't even analyzed the cover yet, and already I'm yelling. That is how bad this thing is. Linkara (v/o): Oh yeah, the cover sucks, too. It features our main character Not-Batman. Oh, I'm sorry, his name is "The Fixer." Linkara: Who the hell names himself "The Fixer?" That's not a superhero, that's someone who spays and neuters cats! Linkara (v/o): So anyway, "The Fixer" is punching a mummy, or something. Oh, my apologies, that's supposed to be a terrorist. I got confused because I have no idea what the hell that head scarf is supposed to be. I did try to look up the terms of various garments worn by Muslims and this thing doesn't look like any of them. You know how in the past I've been annoyed because people will point out a mistake I made in the comments over and over? Well guess what, guys. I am begging you to tell me what the hell this thing is, if it even is anything. Maybe it is a mummy. Oh actually, I know exactly what it is! POORLY DRAWN!! Just like the rest of the cover! The Fixer is punching this guy and apparently he's doing it so hard that a stream of teeth are defying gravity and flying out of his mouth in a straight horizontal line. (Cut to MST3K clip: "Pumaman" The main character rescues a man who's falling in a warped angle.) Mike Nelson: Help! I'm falling at a sixty-degree angle, breaking all the laws of physics! Linkara (v/o): And while we're on the subject of the teeth, look how bloody those things are. Did this guy take a bite at a raw meat before he got into a fight with The Fixer? Oh, but we can't forget about The Fixer himself and his "brilliant" superhero costume. Look, I know he was supposed to be Batman, but you could have tried something to give him a more original look. His outfit is just BROWN! It's a brown face mask and a brown shirt and brown gloves. Well, I'd say this is a costume. Frankly, with how many lines it has and how tattered and ripped apart it is, it looks like the guy just threw on a bunch of stained rags he found in his basement. Linkara: And there's another thing that his Fixer name apparently doesn't apply too: Sewing! Linkara (v/o): Dear lord, we're still talking about this cover. I'm devoting a full page of this review to it. That's how awful it is. What else is there to talk about? Oh, how about the wheat strands attached to the terrorist's clothes? Or is it straw? Or the ends of his scarf? Or are they supposed to be action lines, or something, from the punch? The hell are these tassels? Did this guy make his outfit out of curtains? Oh, but let's forget about those and talk about this knife. Crocodile Dundee is looking at that knife and putting away his own in shame. It's about as big as The Fixer's head with two different serrated edges on the back and two spikes on the hilt. Who makes a knife like that except a ten-year-old who doesn't know any better? (Cut to 90's Kid) 90's Kid: Duuuuude! That knife is awesome! It's the kind of knife that shows that no matter how you stab the villain, they're always gonna end up with an AWESOME SCAR! (Fade to a decorative cake with the words: "Happy 300th Episode" written in red icing. Fade to black.) (Commercial) (Fade out; back to the cake. Lewis's hand carries his kitchen knife,finding a perfect slice of the cake. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" still plays in the background. Lewis finally make a perfect slice.) Linkara (v/o): Oh, but let's not forget about the perspective. Mummy Muslim has wrapped his ginormous hand and arm around The Fixer to a degree that the knife is in front of his head, despite the arm being behind his shoulder! Linkara: (anguished) We have not even BEGUN this comic yet, people! I implore you! Pray for me! Linkara (v/o): (finally we begin reading the comic) We open with a two-page spread of a quote: Quote: "IF YOU MEET THE INFIDEL, KILL THE INFIDEL!" Linkara (v/o): This is sourced as "Mohammed." * Note: Mohammed can be technically spelled as Muhammad. Either one is accepted. Linkara: Yeah, funny thing about this quote, (chuckle) it's entirely made up. Linkara (v/o): Now, there are bits in the Qur'an referring to Muslims killing non-Muslims, but quotes are a funny thing. You take anything out of the context of what was written around it and suddenly it means something entirely different. The Qur'an refers to Muslims killing non-Muslims, IN SELF-DEFENSE! In fact, it specifically states to never start a fight because Allah does not like aggressors. There are also bits about making peace with non-Muslims, sheltering them, if they're in need, and then conveying them to safety. Linkara: Funny, how easy it is to fact-check with a simple Google Search! But, hey, we can't expect Frank Miller to do that kind of intense research. In mean, this was published such a long time ago, ALL THE WAY BACK IN 2011!! Linkara (v/o): By the way, if this is about terrorists and not Muslims at large, why are we opening with a supposed quote from Mohammed? Wouldn't it be more accurate and effective to quote Osama bin Laden or something? It's not like we're wanting for quotes from terrorists about wanting to kill the infidel. But, if we're playing the "take religious quotes out of context" game, Franky, I can play, too! (Caption appears:) "Anyone who blasphemes the name of the lord must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the name, he must be put to death." --- Leviticus 24:16, New International Version (NIV) Linkara: Actually, that was very wrong of me. If we're playing by Frank Miller's rules, we should be totally making up the quote and then not sourcing it properly. Let's try this again. (Another caption appears:) "Adam, either you put on some damn pants or this relationship is over" --- Eve Linkara (v/o): We truly open with... Lots and lots of white-out spilled onto the page. Oh, I'm sorry, checking the next page, we see it's clearly supposed to be rain, or possibly snow. To be fair, when it comes to Frank Miller's art, his greatest strength has always been his use of negative space, contrasting black-and-white colors to create images. Unfortunately, it's the weather effects that are really suffering here and are making it look like he accidentally had a seizure while drawing the rain. This is Empire City, obviously the stand-in for Gotham, even down to the Statue of Liberty-esque statue that Gotham is sometimes depicted as having. But, hey, while we're on the subject of Gotham City, it's time to meet Not-Batman and Not-Catwoman. The two are running around on a rooftop with Not-Catwoman naturally wearing a thong, a shoulder-less top, and fish-net stockings. I would remind you that Frank Miller is the guy who re-imagined Catwoman in Batman: Year One as a prostitute in similar garb. Linkara: Frank Miller, if she ain't a prostitute yet, just give me a few pages. Linkara (v/o): I find myself utterly confused by Not-Catwoman's footwear. Are they supposed to be roller skates? That wouldn't make any sense for the rooftop parkour she's doing. Why are they the only things colored red on these pages? You would color them red like that to draw specific attention to them, except the more I look at them the more baffled I get. AGAIN, are they roller skates? Some kind of fancy shoe bottoms? Why are the shoe bottoms getting the red color? How can they even be the bottoms of the shoes? We see in several shots that she'd have her legs extended out in a way that makes no sense. But, if they're not the shoe bottoms, why then do her feet come to little stumps? But whatever. Eight pages in, not counting the quote, we FINALLY get some real dialogue that's not grunting. Narration: "Natalie Stack" "Cat Burglar" "On the run:" Natalie Stack: "He's right on my ass." "Right on my ass." "What is his goddamn problem?" "All I did was steal a lousy diamond bracelet." "And now, he's right on my ass." Linkara: Just in case you were wondering if the writing is less repetitive from Franky in recent years, there's your answer. Linkara (v/o): Oh, and nice use of the black and white narration captions. At first, I thought it was the narrator or The Fixer talking about Natalie Stack. But apparently, she was talking about herself. What? The captions aren't different in any other way, so they must be coming from the same damn person. So glad that the only color on the page was given to her SHOES. After some more evasion on random rooftops, which looks as if Frank decided to use finger painting on the edges of the page to smudge everything, Miss Stack scratches her not-cat nails on the side of the building in a totally-not-Catwoman fashion and I begin to question the formating of the book again. I'm showing you the full page so you can get a whole glimpse of this. Notice something about the two sets of panels? Comic books, manga novel standing, traditionally follow a read-left-to-right format, just like regular books. Sure, there's variation, like with the left side here with three panels stacked on top of each other and then the big panel next to them, but it's how it usually goes. Except here, we've got two entire sets of panels that are unconnected. With how they're sized, frankly, it looks like he started drawing the comic in standard format, but then changed in the middle of working on the thing so that it was this over-sized crap. To be honest, it makes me feel like the comic is twice as long as it is, and it's already 120 pages! Ugh, anyway, she scratches the wall and hangs on for dear life. Stack: "Lucky girl. Lucky." "Nine lives and all that." Linkara: If she's not called Catwoman, why does she talk about "nine lives?" Did they just forget to edit this? Linkara (v/o): Anyway, thanks to some random white scratches on the page, she falls off the side of the building. Oh, and we do have some more colors that I just noticed, dark green eyes. This comic feels like a half-completed paint by numbers book. Fortunately for her, The Fixer swings over and catches her while she does the subway sandwich thighs thing in the air. Because when you're falling to your death, you want to make it look like you're kneeling. And check out The Fixer's bullet belt and gun in a holster. I am rather curious if that was part of the plan for the original Batman stuff. I think that would have made the folks at DC tilt their heads a little. And geez, just look at this pose on Natalie Stack. What the hell is this expression and pose? (Cut to Linkara mimicking Stack's pose while going "Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh!") Linkara (v/o): Oh, and The Fixer's brilliant plan to save them both is to swing back towards the rooftop, let go of the line, and have the two crash into the roof while clinging to each other and then he handcuffs her. Naturally, Miss Stack does not take kindly to this and kicks The Fixer right in the balls. Linkara: Knowing what's going to happen later on in this comic, this image of The Fixer getting his crotch kicked is gonna be my happy place from here on out. Linkara (v/o): The two promptly kick the crap out of each other and, naturally, with this basically being a Sin City comic with Batman, it quickly turns into awkward sexual violence when the two begin making out with each other. They kiss, fall off the rooftop onto ANOTHER rooftop, while the moon hangs behind them, friggin' huge and imposing, making me hope that this comic will end with the moon colliding with the planet and killing everyone, and we even get to see that a sound effect of them falling is KRUNK. (Cut to a clip from the Game Crazy training video.) Zelda Scott: That was krunk. Linkara (v/o): So, after some more of them hitting each other and making out... Linkara: (singing) Sexy, sexy, violence. Sexy, sexy, violence. Linkara (v/o): It's time for another classic Miller trademark to make its appearance. Stack: I hate your guts. Fixer: Sure, you do. Stack: I hate your guts. You make me sick. Fixer: Sure, I do. (Cut to clip from "MST3K: Robot Monster.") Tom Servo: Ever heard of deja vu, Joe? Stack: Make me sick. Now. Fixer: Sure I will. Linkara: And they proceed to vomit all over each other. Linkara (v/o): Or the sun explodes, given this page. Stack: Just a slow night. That's all. That's all. That's all. That's all. That's all. That's all. (This is literally how the comic is read. It's not me accidentally copying and pasting the quoted sentence.) Linkara: Oh great, Frank's record is skipping. Someone hit the jukebox!! Linkara (v/o): I'm not too far off with the sun exploding comment. It turns out that there is an explosion. A nail bombing has been detonated, sending dozens, no, hundreds of nails out into the air. And already it is ridiculous because the explosion is so bright and powerful, and there are so many nails and they're being flung up so high, that they are reaching rooftops, that is just seems pointless. If the explosion is that big and powerful, they'd be dead from the explosion already. But yeah, they shoot out everywhere and hit Miss Stack right in the leg, who begins to yell Jesus's name over and over again because I imagine that really frigging hurts. Oh, and The Fixer is completely unaffected. He just kind of roles away without any damage, I think anyway, since he's so bloody and bruised from the earlier sex combat that I can't tell. And, of course, because Miss Stack is S-M-R-T, she pulls the nail out of her leg, and for some reason there isn't any blood on it. Are her legs not real? Then, why would she be in pain from the nail... oh, screw it. Stack: A nail. A goddamn nail. What is a goddamn nail stuck in my goddamn leg. Linkara (v/o): '''The "goddamn" thing? HE'S STILL DOING THE WHOLE "GODDAMN BATMAN" THING, EVEN THOUGH IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE A BATMAN COMIC!! '''Linkara: Frank, do you hate the meme? Is that why you keep injecting it in long past the point where anybody cared about it? Are you trying to make us sick of it? Are you just ashamed that the work you did for "All Star Batman and Robin" got reduced to an internet joke? If that's the case, may I offer you some advice? DON'T WRITE SUCH BLATANTLY IDIOTIC THINGS AND WE WON'T MAKE FUN OF YOU FOR IT!! Stack: '''What the hell is going on? '''Fixer: It's war, darling, It's war. Linkara: (singing like The Fixer) Huh, good god y'all, What is it good for? Stack: '''It really hurts. '''Fixer: I know it, baby. I know it hurts. (Cut to Linkara lip syncing to "What is Love" and bobbing his head a la Roxbury Guys from SNL.) Linkara (v/o): '''We cut to... ten minutes ago. '''Linkara: Oh god, is this gonna be like ASBAR's confused timescale? I can't go back, bro!! Linkara (v/o): '''Fortunately not, instead, let's meet Amina, a foreign exchange student and Humanities major. And also, since she's a woman in a Frank Miller comic, she has extremely puffy lips. '''Narration: Empire City, USA. This city is, Linkara (v/o): ...uh comma splice there, Frank. (Caption: "Actually it's just really poor sentence structure, but still...") (Caption and voiceover) Because poor literacy... is expected from uneducated bigoted morons. (back to the comic) Narration: Cold and wet and noisy and so very proud of itself. Linkara (v/o): It also has this problem of giant gargoyle statues that anybody can just walk on to, apparently. Mind you, I'm assuming the pink shape there is Amina. Then, what the hell is she sitting on? The two hell-dogs from Ghostbusters? Narration: Empire City. Cold. Wet. Noisy. Linkara: (as Narrator) Repetitive. Narration: '''Haughty. Arrogant. Always building itself up bigger, taller, like some mad gaggle of robots. Always climbing. '''Linkara: How dare we take advantage of vertical space? Wayside School is the devil!!! Narration: '''Its towers stab into the sky like sharpened sticks aimed at the eyes of God. '''Linkara: Is Frank Miller under the impression that skyscrapers don't exist in Muslim countries? Oh, silly question. I forgot. He's the guy who thinks that they couldn't have figured out microphones. He must think that people in United Arab Emirates live in ramshackle huts and mud igloos. (Brings up images of skyscrapers from UAE and Malaysia.) Linkara (v/o): '''Just for the sake of accuracy, this image right here is the Burj Khalifa, or the Khalifa Tower. It's the tallest building in the world and currently resides in Dubai. A tower or two previously, the record was held by the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. '''Linkara: I'm curious. How comfortable is your head, Frank, when it shoves so far up your own ass? Narration: '''Empire City. Proud. Arrogant. Haughty. Wet. Cold. '''Linkara: OKAY, FRANK! WE GET IT! YOU DON'T OWN A THESAURUS! MOVE ON!!! Linkara (v/o): '''I don't even know what we're looking at anymore. Some giant pink monster with a Xenomorph head looking at a construction site? What the hell is this?! Apparently, there was an explosion in the distance an Amina is met by some girl whose face is constantly hidden in shadow. It's a bizarre artistic choice to make. As we're about to learn, Amina is a terrorist herself, but she's completely visible. The innocent girl she's talking to is the one almost always hidden in shadow and obscured. Amina looks just like the friggin' main character herself, big innocent eyes, we see her clearly-- what the hell? Anyway, yeah, the girl, named Jaye, asks Amina if she wants to be standing there, whatever "there" is, because the rain is making things slippery. '''Narration: You worry for me, a stranger. Linkara: (waving his hands around and talking in a robot voice) Is this one of your hu-man emotions? Linkara (v/o): '''Jaye says she spotted her walking out and figured she came out to smoke and decided to do the same. '''Amina: I don't smoke, Jaye. But I'll take a swig of that beer. Linkara (v/o): And, indeed, Jaye hands her the beer and she takes a sip of it. Amina: My first alcohol. Ever. Linkara: Religious reasons or not if you realized what comic you were in, you would be chugging that bottle. (Caption appears: "Continued in Part 2") Category:Content Category:Guides Category:AT4Wguides Category:Marvel Category:Transcripts